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Article 23 of 25 · Energy insight and dataTackling energy waste in businesses: a guide for businesses
Direct answer
Energy waste in businesses is the energy use that serves no purpose: equipment, lighting and climate systems left on needlessly, standby consumption and poorly configured installations. You detect it through insight into your consumption, especially at night. You tackle it with better settings, behaviour, maintenance and targeted technology. Above a certain consumption level in the Netherlands, this falls under your legal energy saving obligation.
- Clear definition
- Data-driven assessment
- Risks and opportunities visible
- Practical next steps
Tackling energy waste in businesses: scattered information versus Energy Intelligence
Almost every business uses more energy than it needs, often without noticing. Think of a warehouse where the lighting stays on all weekend, an office where ventilation runs at full power at night, or refrigeration working harder than its setting requires. This waste costs money and needlessly burdens your grid connection. For business owners, facility managers and finance leads it is attractive to tackle, because much of it can be solved without major investment.
- The biggest waste often sits in installations and equipment that keep running outside working hours, in standby consumption, and in climate systems that heat and cool against each other.
- You find waste fastest by examining your night-time and weekend consumption: whatever is still running then uses energy while nobody is working.
- Many measures against waste are legally required: in the Netherlands, anything with a payback time of five years or less falls under the energy saving obligation.
Insight
Traditional approach
Information is scattered across portals, documents, invoices or separate spreadsheets.
Modern approach
Data, context and interpretation are brought together into a clear decision picture.
Decision-making
Traditional approach
Choices are made based on averages, assumptions or occasional analyses.
Modern approach
Scenarios, KPIs and current measurement data make the trade-off more concrete and repeatable.
Follow-up
Traditional approach
Actions often stay non-committal or disappear into separate reports.
Modern approach
Follow-up actions, monitoring and reporting are linked to the same energy data.
Where does energy waste sit in a business?
Waste is rarely in one place. Often equipment, lighting and climate systems keep running while nobody is present, because a timer or night setback is missing. Standby consumption adds up: much equipment draws power while doing nothing. Poorly configured installations waste structurally, for example heating and cooling working against each other, or pumps and fans running harder than needed. Leaks in compressed air or insufficient maintenance also push consumption up. What is typical is that the waste is continuous: a wrong setting costs energy day and night, year after year, until someone intervenes.
- Lighting, equipment and machines that keep running outside working hours.
- Standby consumption of equipment that appears to be switched off.
- Climate systems without a night setback, or heating and cooling working against each other.
- Leaks in compressed air, and installations that run less efficiently through deferred maintenance.
How do you detect waste?
Start with insight into your own consumption. Consumption that barely drops at night, at weekends or during holidays almost always points to waste: something is running while nobody works. Monitoring at main level, and where possible at sub level, shows which installation consumes at which moment. That separates the use that belongs to your work from the use that leaks away. Also walk your installations physically to check settings and operating times. The Recognised Measures List from RVO helps you search in a targeted way: it names the common measures against waste per industry, so you know where to look first.
- Compare your daytime consumption with your night and weekend consumption: the part that does not drop is often waste.
- Use monitoring to make consumption visible per installation or department.
- Check settings, timers and operating times of your installations on site.
- Work through the RVO Recognised Measures List for your sector as a checklist.
What do you do about it?
Much waste disappears by using existing installations more intelligently, before you invest. Adjust motors, pumps, heating, cooling and ventilation properly, and switch off machines and lighting outside working hours. Set a night setback and match climate systems to actual operating times. Good maintenance keeps installations efficient and prevents breakdowns. Behaviour matters: clear agreements about what goes off in the evening prevent waste from creeping back. Where needed, replace outdated technology, for example old lighting with LED. Follow-up is crucial: measure afterwards whether consumption really drops, because without checks old settings quietly return.
- Configure installations properly and switch off equipment and lighting outside working hours.
- Set a night setback and link climate systems to the real operating times.
- Maintain installations and fix leaks; replace outdated technology where it pays off.
- Make behavioural agreements and use your monitoring to check the saving holds.
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